Life’s Not a Party

A short film by Jemile Kendjer, Jeremy Sta Ana, Nina Jenney

Life’s Not a Party is a coming-of-age short film set solely on a desktop that follows a girl celebrating her 18th birthday during the Covid-19 Lockdown in 2020. As she receives news that she is unable to celebrate her birthday coming up, her life which is supposed to be a party ends up not being one.

 

Throughout the process of making this short film, we were able to collaboratively work together on the ideas and concepts of the coming-of-age films we’ve seen and adapt certain tropes we wanted to include in our short film. From designing the desktop graphics, creating a fitting soundtrack and sourcing computer and application sounds, our group was successful in creating an idealised desktop world the main character spends her time on during lockdown. The most challenging aspect of this project was when it came to the editing stage. This type of film is fairly new to me so I spent most of my time learning and educating myself of certain editing techniques to replicate a computeresque world.

As well as learning new editing techniques and methods, what I’ve learnt through this collaborative project is that it sometimes has its difficulties. For one, the circumstances of this course being online brings an inability to effectively engage with my peers. Besides attending the same classes, it’s difficult to get to know other people and create meaningful connections. Another difficult aspect of working collaboratively is communicating effectively to set roles and responsibilities for each member of a group as well as a need for one person to take charge of the entire project. I feel this is to ensure that everyone is on the right page and delegating a leader helps to ensure the project runs smoothly. Throughout this course, I’ve gained a better understanding of what genre entails, and with the exercises and assignments, I was able to improve my technical and collaborative skills.

 

By: Jeremy Sta Ana (s3659719)